Publications

Teaching Interest

Risk Management for Corporate Leaders

By: Robert Simons

As companies adapt to the aftershocks of the global recession, senior executives and boards are discovering that risk management has never been more important. The financial crisis revealed that risk management structures break down just when... View Details

September 2024
Exercise

Assessing the Value of Unifying and De-Duplicating Customer Data

By: Elie Ofek and Hema Yoganarasimhan

This exercise provides an opportunity for students to gain hands on experience with assessing the value of unifying various customer databases that a firm may have (e.g., across the different brands it markets) and of properly identifying customers to avoid duplication... View Details

Keywords: Customer Relationship Management; Measurement and Metrics; Analytics and Data Science; Value

June 10, 2022
Article

Does Your Company’s Culture Reinforce Its Strategy and Purpose?

By: Hubert Joly

Good strategy has traditionally been seen as the key to business success. More recently, purpose has become an essential element of doing business. But something else is missing: culture, or the essential elements of how an organization and its employees behave, as... View Details

Keywords: Success; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Culture; Corporate Strategy

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September 2, 2020
Article

What Really Prevents Companies from Thriving in a Recession

By: Ranjay Gulati and Mark Wiedman

Even in the best of times, many companies fail to fund and staff new opportunities. As decades of research have shown, leaders fear threats to their status and power and so become attached to existing businesses and budgets, regarding them as entitlements and as a... View Details

Keywords: Recessions; Resource Allocation; Budgets and Budgeting

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06 Feb 2007
First Look

First Look: February 6, 2007

Working PapersThe Rise of Business Forecasting Agencies in the United States Author:Walter A. Friedman Abstract This paper analyzes the rise of business and economic forecasting agencies in the United States. The field was developed by entrepreneurs like Roger Babson... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

2008
Working Paper

Wellsprings of Creation: How Perturbation Sustains Exploration in Mature Organizations

By: David James Brunner, Bradley R. Staats, Michael L. Tushman and David M. Upton

Organizations struggle to balance simultaneous imperatives to exploit and explore, yet theorists differ as to whether exploitation undermines or enhances exploration. The debate reflects a gap: the missing mechanism by which organizations break free of old routines and... View Details

Keywords: Disruption; Innovation and Management; Business Processes; Opportunities; Creativity

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January 1995 (Revised June 1995)
Case

Cybertech Project (A), The

Describes the development and exploitation of a radical new computer-integrated technology in the largely manual meat-processing industry. The technology has been developed by the meat industry's research organization over a period of 15 years and is now ready for... View Details

Keywords: Production; Animal-Based Agribusiness; Information Technology; Product Marketing; Manufacturing Industry; Information Technology Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry

August 2019
Case

Humanistic Capitalism at Brunello Cucinelli

By: Francesca Gino and Gary Pisano

This case explores one company’s attempt to experiment with a different underlying model for a capitalist enterprise. Brunello Cucinelli, S.p.A. is a leading manufacturer of luxury fashion apparel. Despite being a publicly traded enterprise with annual revenues... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Culture; Human Resource Practices; Growth; Growth Strategy; Motivation; Values; Fashion; Capitalism; Organizational Culture; Values and Beliefs; Human Resources; Management; Business Model; Policy; Behavior; Growth and Development Strategy; Luxury; Italy

Keywords: Information Technology; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Organizational Culture; Mobile and Wireless Technology; Performance Productivity; Problems and Challenges; Management Practices and Processes; Business Divisions; Information Management; Information Technology Industry; Telecommunications Industry; United States

February 1991 (Revised February 1992)
Case

Appex Corp.

By: Nitin Nohria

1990 Business Week named Appex Corp. the fastest growing high-technology company in the United States. Appex provided management information systems and intercarrier network services to cellular telephone companies. During its rapid growth, the company went through... View Details

03 Oct 2006
First Look

First Look: October 3, 2006

Working PapersRacial Diversity Initiatives in Professional Service Firms: What Factors Differentiate Successful from Unsuccessful Initiatives? Authors:Modupe Akinola and David A. Thomas Abstract Diversity continues to be a key focus for organizations, driven by... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2011 (Revised June 2011)
Case

Stock Reform of Shenzhen Development Bank

By: Li Jin, Li Liao, Aldo Sesia and Jianyi Wu

Shenzhen Development Bank, China's first publicly traded company, was undergoing the non-tradable share reform. Its current controlling shareholder, private equity firm Newbridge Capital LLC, needs to negotiate with its diverse minority shareholders to find a... View Details

Keywords: Capital; Private Equity; Investment; Corporate Governance; Managerial Roles; Emerging Markets; Negotiation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Conflict of Interests; Banking Industry; China

2020
Working Paper

Aggregate Advertising Expenditure in the U.S. Economy: What's Up? Is It Real?

By: Alvin J. Silk and Ernst R. Berndt

The two components of the advertising industry—the creative sector that develops and produces messages, and the communications sector that transmits messages via various media—have each been greatly affected by advances in creative design and communications... View Details

Keywords: Economy; Advertising; Spending; Media

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30 Nov 2011
Research & Ideas

Only Capitalists Can Save Capitalism

If capitalism was a stock, the market would appear rather bearish on its future. Bank failures, economic crises, and middle-class riots across the globe appear symptomatic of large systemic weaknesses in the market system, highlighted by the 2008 global financial... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish

10 Jan 2007
HBS Case

The Challenge of Managing National Security

the challenge of differentiating and integrating an organization—that is, breaking it into specialized parts yet getting the parts to work together. Cases about extreme circumstances force students to think outside their usual domains.... View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons; Service

25 Jan 2022
Research & Ideas

More Proof That Money Can Buy Happiness (or a Life with Less Stress)

Breaking the ‘shame spiral’ In another recent paper, Jachimowicz and colleagues found that people experiencing financial difficulties experience shame, which leads them to avoid dealing with their problems and often makes them worse. Such... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

January 2018 (Revised May 2019)
Case

Adeo Health Science: Turning a Product into a Brand

By: Elizabeth A. Keenan and Jill Avery

For decades, American parents were warned to avoid introducing potential allergens to their babies prior to their first birthday. But two influential clinical studies caused the medical establishment to radically reverse its position. Parents were now warned that... View Details

Keywords: Startup; Health Care; Consumer; Consumer Products; Branding; Distribution; Retailing; Go To Market Strategy; Marketing; Marketing Channels; Marketing Communications; Brands and Branding; Marketing Strategy; Entrepreneurship; Health Care and Treatment; Consumer Products Industry; Health Industry; United States; North America

2012
Chapter

The Small Worlds of Business Groups: Liberalization and Network Dynamics

By: Jon Brookfield, Sea-Jin Chang, Israel Drori, Shmuel Ellis, Sergio G. Lazzarini, Jordan I. Siegel and Juan Pablo von Bernath Bardina

Using comparative data from six major emerging economies — Brazil, Chile, Israel, Mexico, South Korea, and Taiwan — we examine how ownership networks in those societies responded to a roughly similar “ structural break ” of economic liberalization during the 1990s... View Details

Keywords: Emerging Economies; Ownership; Corporate Governance; Emerging Markets

April 2005 (Revised April 2005)
Background Note

Corporate Strategies in Media and Entertainment Businesses

By: Bharat N. Anand

In recent years, many debates in corporate strategy have centered around information goods markets, and the media and entertainment sector in particular. Vertical integration is the norm in many parts of the media sector, despite conventional wisdom that it offers no... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Strategy

September 2021
Article

Shaking Things Up: Disruptive Events and Inequality

By: Letian Zhang

This paper develops a theory of how disruptive events could reduce racial and gender inequality in organizations. Despite pressure from regulators and advocates, racial and gender inequality in the workplace remains high. I theorize that because such inequality is... View Details

Keywords: Inequality; Equality and Inequality; Diversity; Race; Gender; Restructuring; Mergers and Acquisitions; Disruption